Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles

[Andristan]

I really fail to see any reason Albania of all places gets rewarded with pieces of stalwart ally Yugoslavia especially when said reward is part of Kosovo, part of the foundational mythos of the Serbs. Heck, in OTL, the Serbs still claim kosovo.

 

[Quinkana]

I really fail to see any reason Albania of all places gets rewarded with pieces of stalwart ally Yugoslavia especially when said reward is part of Kosovo, part of the foundational mythos of the Serbs. Heck, in OTL, the Serbs still claim kosovo.

probably yeah, especially since Albania is in no position to demand anything from the Allies.

I could see it being discussed in the future though

 

[Duke of Orlando]

I really fail to see any reason Albania of all places gets rewarded with pieces of stalwart ally Yugoslavia especially when said reward is part of Kosovo, part of the foundational mythos of the Serbs. Heck, in OTL, the Serbs still claim kosovo.

To be clear my concept was less giving the Albanians anything and more paying the Albanians for aid in a hypothetical war like they did with the Greeks. Particularly the Albanian dominated part of Macedonia as that doesn’t kick the Kosovo hornets nest

 

[Lascaris]

I expect with Ahmed bedridden, Osman is told to wait, letting Ahmed be the transition Sultan, while he ascends in a new institutional role under a new constitution

More or less. He's next in line to the throne, has apparently good relations with the Kemalists and given how Ahmed IV is incapacitated would have increasingly more influence.

I’m not sure if this is better or worse for Finland. On one hand this is a slightly larger and I think more veteran force. On the other hand the offensive is starting a bit later which will give the Finns about 15 more days to build fortifications since the attack on Viipuri happened on the tenth OTL. And they were actively building the VKT line and reinforcing the VT line at the time so this is worth mentioning. Not a lot of time but every little bit helps. So the defenders might be slightly better able to deal with the initial bombardment and the coming assaults. Plus the Allies were leaning on the Soviets hard to end the Finnish side show, so the Moscow armistice might come at basically the same time. So if the Finns are able to hold at the VT line they may be able to extract a better peace deal than OTL at basically the same time. Maybe they can keep the Ingrian Finns and the other Finnish ethnic groups that evacuated from Ingria, and possibly a little more land. If memory serves the Finns had a slightly more advantageous treaty from the Winter War so that should help them at least somewhat even if things end up exactly the same.

Whether this is better or worse of Finland is open to be seen. At this point the Finns had nearly 3 years preparing their positions so I pretty much doubt two weeks have much of an impact. Land wise the Soviets did attack with the explicit goal of getting a Finnish unconditional surrender but nevertheless Stalin was talking about a return to the 1940 borders. Since TTL these do include Viipuri...

Well, we're going to see the Greeks push back against the Bulgarians, aren't we, and this will probably break the Bulgarians. Considering how the army of the Orient are much more likely to fight the Bulgarians for unconditional surrender I think post WWII Bulgaria will be a very different beast (not to mention the fact the Soviets probably won't be able to make Bulgaria a communist government).

For certain the Allies hold clear numerical superiority and massive material superiority.

That would be very interesting for the Balkans, especially if the Balkans becomes split between the Americans and Soviets. Perhaps a Soviet Romania, Hungary and Slovakia

tbf I hope we get a bigger finland, that'll be good for the Finns, and it'd make their role in the Cold War more interesting: the neutral bloc could be something the Finns create.

Someone would note there are ways and ways to have a larger Finland. I short of suspect you would not like some of them...

It wasn't abolished in the first place here if I'm not mistaken, although it was made largely toothless. It's more a question on whether they'd be able to stick around after the peace and who they'd be useful for.

The British are the British, they are inclined to support one. And since Karabekir, Inonu and Cakmak also want it kept around the Soviets don't have reason to want it overthrown.

Tempted to agree with his assessment. For one, the alt-WW treaty was actually quite favorable in that the Finns (barely) hung onto Viipuri/Vyborg, a city of ~80k people at the time if memory serves. For another, the Finns have both marginally greater prep time and a differently-extended Soviet force - I would not expect all of the materiel dedicated to the Turkish campaign to have been relocated north in a bit under two months, particularly given the needs of garrisons and peacekeeping forces in Turkey (and perhaps parts of the Caucasus where Turkish-supporting militias are still active).

Not all of it but it's totally within the Soviet organizational capabilities at this point in the war to refurbish units with new material, which they are producing in abundance, while the material used in Anatolia is being refurbished or to shift units of the Caucasus front to the general reserve to rebuild while units from the general reserve are shifted north to take on the Finns.

If nothing else, I doubt the coming peace would lead to the Finns losing Viipuri and the other ATL bits they hold - objectively gains over OTL. Unsure if Moscow will be willing to accept any territorial losses beyond writing those off again, but keeping evacuees from Ingria could slide with the right amount of diplomatic capital. Maybe a DMZ of the border between Viipuri and Leningrad will be enforced here, given how much a security concern that is/was to the Soviets.

The Soviet Union at a minimum will want back the 1940 border. And OTL its goal was unconditional surrender of Finland.

Would the allies not just abolish the Turkish monarchy? Others know far more about 20th century Turkish politics so I will defer to their judgement, but considering that the Ottomans have waged 2 world wars against the allies and have attempted to leverage the title of caliph in both wars to incite the allies' Muslim subjects to rise up against them, would the allies not just insist on turning Turkey into a republic? Maybe it doesn't matter considering Turkey will be a rump state of its former self in any case, but I still feel like if the British and French are dictating terms in an unconditional surrender they are going to insist Turkey become a republic.

I suppose the allies did not abolish the Japanese monarchy in OTL, but from everything I know the Japanese monarchy was far more popular and culturally ingrained than the Turkish monarchy is ITTL.

Abolishing the caliphate does certainly make sense. The monarchy itself is arguably a different kettle of fish. After all someone could argue that Turkish politics took an anti-British bent when the sultan lost actual power...

Since Bulgaria will be bulldozed and will be a part of the allied camp, assuming that Yugoslavia will also be a part of the allied camp, what if the Allies were to decide to go with a nuclear option, that being establishing a Greater Yugoslavia, (one that includes Bulgaria), as a decent counterweight the Soviet Union by claiming the mantle of Pan-Slavism.

It would also make this new state a solid bulwark against both Romania AND Hungary, covering the NATO southern flank to perfection.
The populace would be extremely supportive, both at Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, even previously hostile nationalist/leftist organizations like IMRO, ITRO in Bulgaria and the Partisans in Yugoslavia etc respectively would be largely swayed by this action to the allies.

Now, Greece might not exactly be in favor of this, but nonetheless it is a solid action that would also give the additional benefit to Greece to effectively disengage itself from the Balkans and focus against the Turks exclusively.

How exactly creating a hostile country of 22 million that will want Macedonia and Thrace and against which the Greek northern border will be completely exposed is of benefit to Greece? Greece, with excellent reason one might add, considered a Serb-Bulgarian alliance a worst case scenario since oh 1913. Unless of course you want the quickest path to a nuclear armed Greece.

If Yugoslavia is a monarcy there is no world were IMRO accepts annexation. As one salvic bulgarophone Macedonian IMRO member told a Greek agent, we want independence and republika, and you have a King.

Add to it ethnic hatred from 1912-1945 and you are setting up.a project to fail.

The Allies can control Bulgaria via a regency council, and exacerbate the IMRO vs. Political Class conflict. Indeed many say Yugoslavia will get a civil war, but Bulgaria would be a better candidate with IMRO vs Okd Political Class divide.

And isn't that an interesting nest of vipers waiting to raise its head in modern Northern Macedonia? How does a Yugoslav monarchy deals with a minority that actively backed Bulgaria during the war? One can easily argue the inter-war forced Serbianization policies failed, supporting the existence of a separate non Bulgarian Slav-Macedonian identity would be smacking of communism to a non-communist Belgrade...

No I just can’t see this working. Personally I’m expecting the Yugoslavian and possibly Bulgarian civil wars to replace the Greek civil wars. There won’t be talk of some grand border state, there’s gonna be talk about how much of themselves these countries can save.

At a minimum the idea is going to be completely abhorrent to Athens and Greece is the one providing most of the boots on the ground in the Balkan front...

I really fail to see any reason Albania of all places gets rewarded with pieces of stalwart ally Yugoslavia especially when said reward is part of Kosovo, part of the foundational mythos of the Serbs. Heck, in OTL, the Serbs still claim kosovo.

One might note that there is a fair chance, Kosovo is liberated by a majority Serb Royalist Yugoslav army here. What could go wrong particularly given active collaboration with the Axis in the previous years?

 

[Duke of Orlando]

Whether this is better or worse of Finland is open to be seen. At this point the Finns had nearly 3 years preparing their positions so I pretty much doubt two weeks have much of an impact. Land wise the Soviets did attack with the explicit goal of getting a Finnish unconditional surrender but nevertheless Stalin was talking about a return to the 1940 borders. Since TTL these do include Viipuri...

I mean, OTL the VKT line didn’t get started until late in the war. I’ve seen a few different dates listed, some as late as May 1944, for when physical work was finally started on it. Fifteen days means a lot when the total amount otl was around 40 or less.

That being said, I could see the Salpa line having been drawn up and constructed differently in a world where the Finns kept Viipuri. After all, while Saimaa is great for defense, I find it very hard to believe that the Finnish Government would abandon such a large and at risk population center by building the line behind it. So maybe the VKT line got joined together with the Salpa line Pre war.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

I wonder how Islamist movement will react to the fall of Turkey and the potential end of the caliphate, especially if the Allies are responsible for the latter. How do Muslim countries, movements, and leaders in general feel about Turkey?

 

[Duke of Orlando]

I wonder how Islamist movement will react to the fall of Turkey and the potential end of the caliphate, especially if the Allies are responsible for the latter. How do Muslim countries, movements, and leaders in general feel about Turkey?

The Allies forcing it would be the big change in history, as Ataturk abolished the Caliphate in 1924 OTL. The Shia dominated areas and countries likely wouldn’t care, it has no real meaning to them as this is the Sunni caliphate. The Hashemites might be able to get the title if they wanted assuming they get Iraq and maybe Syria, but their hypothetical realm is going to be so religiously diverse I don’t think they’d want to alienate their many Shia subjects by being the Sunni caliphate. Which leaves us in more or less the same situation as otl with no one popular or strong enough to claim it, except it would possibly give the Sunnis of the Middle East one more grievance against “The West”. I’m not sure that changes much.

Honestly I could see the Allies deciding that instead of abolishing it, they’d just give it to someone relatively friendly and harmless to them. My first thought was Mohammad V of Morocco but I doubt the French are gonna be okay with that considering his attitudes about Independence. Maybe it could be part of some sort of peaceful decolonization by the French, given as a carrot to keep something like Casablanca or Rabat. Perhaps they give it to Ibn Saud? Although I’m not sure the US wants to give him that much power either.

To be honest I’m not sure it’s worth the headache for the Allies.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

The Allies forcing it would be the big change in history, as Ataturk abolished the Caliphate in 1924 OTL. The Shia dominated areas and countries likely wouldn’t care, it has no real meaning to them as this is the Sunni caliphate. The Hashemites might be able to get the title if they wanted assuming they get Iraq and maybe Syria, but their hypothetical realm is going to be so religiously diverse I don’t think they’d want to alienate their many Shia subjects by being the Sunni caliphate. Which leaves us in more or less the same situation as otl with no one popular or strong enough to claim it, except it would possibly give the Sunnis of the Middle East one more grievance against “The West”. I’m not sure that changes much.

Honestly I could see the Allies deciding that instead of abolishing it, they’d just give it to someone relatively friendly and harmless to them. My first thought was Mohammad V of Morocco but I doubt the French are gonna be okay with that considering his attitudes about Independence. Maybe it could be part of some sort of peaceful decolonization by the French, given as a stick to keep something like Casablanca or Rabat. Perhaps they give it to Ibn Saud? Although I’m not sure the US wants to give him that much power either.

To be honest I’m not sure it’s worth the headache for the Allies.

I say one less leader with potentially far-reaching and dangerous power over a large and opinionated group spread across the world is a good thing to have as few as possible of

 

[Whiteshore]

Perhaps they give it to Ibn Saud? Although I’m not sure the US wants to give him that much power either.

Oh god no, not Wahhabism as the "official" brand of Islam in a manner than even the OTL Saudi Royal Family has not achieved!

 

[Duke of Orlando]

I say one less leader with potentially far-reaching and dangerous power over a large and opinionated group spread across the world is a good thing to have as few as possible of

Oh god no, not Wahhabism as the "official" brand of Islam in a manner than even the OTL Saudi Royal Family has not achieved!

In general I tend to agree with you both, but as a student of history the west of the 40’s wouldn’t care what the Caliphs beliefs were as long as they thought they could direct them as they wanted.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

In general I tend to agree with you both, but as a student of history the west of the 40’s wouldn’t care what the Caliphs beliefs were as long as they thought they could direct them as they wanted.

I just mean that for the powers that be, when they have a chance to just let that kind of cultural legacy power position fade away into history and not 'burn out than fade away' which would potentially be deleterious to said powers interests v.V

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

The Allies forcing it would be the big change in history, as Ataturk abolished the Caliphate in 1924 OTL. The Shia dominated areas and countries likely wouldn’t care, it has no real meaning to them as this is the Sunni caliphate. The Hashemites might be able to get the title if they wanted assuming they get Iraq and maybe Syria, but their hypothetical realm is going to be so religiously diverse I don’t think they’d want to alienate their many Shia subjects by being the Sunni caliphate. Which leaves us in more or less the same situation as otl with no one popular or strong enough to claim it, except it would possibly give the Sunnis of the Middle East one more grievance against “The West”. I’m not sure that changes much.

Honestly I could see the Allies deciding that instead of abolishing it, they’d just give it to someone relatively friendly and harmless to them. My first thought was Mohammad V of Morocco but I doubt the French are gonna be okay with that considering his attitudes about Independence. Maybe it could be part of some sort of peaceful decolonization by the French, given as a carrot to keep something like Casablanca or Rabat. Perhaps they give it to Ibn Saud? Although I’m not sure the US wants to give him that much power either.

To be honest I’m not sure it’s worth the headache for the Allies.

Maybe the Allies are smart and decide to ask Muslim leaders what to do with the caliphate position, knowing that abolishing such a power position without consulting them can bite them back really hard.

 

[Khan Doomy]

1) Albania and Serbia
Just a reminder that the Karageorgevits' were interested in adding Albania to their crown. You could see an attempt to that ATL and use of Albanians as counterweight to SlavoMacedonians.

2) on the caliphate. Frankly nobody cared except Indian Muslims. The Allies would probably "advise" the Turks to abolish it as part of a constitutional reform. They might argue for the Hashemites to get it, but likely won't care much. The Muslim Brotherhood will be angry, but they are always angry.

 

[Khan Doomy]

Here is one case we're the Btitish keeping the Mughals could had been useful.

 

[Lascaris]

Allied Armies of the Orient (Theodore Pangalos)

GHQ Reserve

• 13th Marine Infantry Regiment
• III Airborne brigade (Christodoulos Tsigantes)
  • 10th Paratrooper Regiment
  • 2nd Raiding Regiment

Macedonian Front

• 1st Greek Army (Ptolemaios Sarigiannis)
  • A Corps (Charalambos Katsimitros)
    • I Infantry Division (Petros Nikolopoulos)
    • XVI Infantry division (Demetrios Psarros)
    • 1st Armoured Cavalry Division (Konstantinos Davakis)
  • C Corps (Sokratis Demaratos)
    • IX Infantry Division (Stefanos Sarafis)
    • XIII Mountain Division (Thraymboulos Tsakalotos)
    • 2nd Armoured Cavalry Division (Christos Avramidis)
  • D Army Corps (Euripidis Bakirtzis)
    • VII Infantry Division (Ignatios Kallergis)
    • XI Infantry Division (Demetrios Giantzis)
    • III Armoured Division (Andreas Kallinskis)
  • E Army Corps (Konstantinos Ventiris)
    • V Infantry division (Alkiviades Bourdaras)
    • X Infantry Division (Panagiotis Spiliotopoulos)
    • Archipelago division (Efstathios Liosis)
• 10th British Army (William Slim)
  • 1st Free Polish Corps (Wladislaw Anders)
    • 1 Dywizja Grenadierów
    • 2 Dywizja Strzelców Pieszych
    • 4 Dywizja Piechoty
    • 2 Brygada Pancerna
  • New Zealand Corps (Bernard Freyberg)
    • 2nd New Zealand Division
    • 1st Palestine (Israeli) Division
    • 6th Armoured Division
• 3rd Yugoslav Army group (Milorad Petrovic)
  • 3rd Army (Jovan Naumovic)
    • 5th Infantry Division Šumadijska
    • 20th Infantry Division Bregalnička
  • 5th Army (Vladimir Cukavac)
    • 31st Infantry Division Kosovska
    • 34th Infantry Division Toplička
    • 2nd Cavalry Division (Draga Mihailovic)
• Armee D' Orient (Antoine Bethouart)
  • 1ere Corps Armee Francaise Libre
    • 3e Division d'Infanterie Algérienne
    • 7e Division d'Infanterie Algérienne
  • 2e Corps Armee Francaise Libre
    • 1re Division Francaise Libre
    • 3e Division Blindee

Epirus Army Detachment (Georgios Dromazos)

• B Corps (Basileios Brachnos)
  • IV Infantry Division (Emmanuel Mantakas)
  • VI Infantry Division (Leonidas Spaes)
  • VIII Infantry Division (Napoleon Zervas)
  • 3/40 Euzone Regiment

18th Allied Army Group (Maitland Wilson)

• Army of Asia Minor (Alexandros Papagos)
  • Z Army Corps (Demetrios Papadopoulos)
    • XII Infantry division (Sotirios Moutousis)
    • Crete Division (Christos Karassos)
• British 9th Army (William Holmes)
  • III Corps
    • 6th Indian Division
    • 1st Arab Division (Arab Legion)
    • 3rd Iranian Infantry Division
    • 1st Assyrian Brigade Group
  • Peshmerga
    • 1st Kurdish Division
    • 2nd Kurdish Division
    • 3rd Kurdish Division

15th Army Group (Mediterranean, Archibald Wavell)

Italy and Sicily

• British 8th Army (Oliver Leese)
  • V British Corps
    • 4th Indian Division
    • 46th Infantry Division
    • 56th Infantry Division
    • 78th Infantry Division
    • 21st Armoured brigade
    • 25th Armoured Brigade
  • X Corps
    • 10th Indian Division
    • 5th Infantry Division
    • 44th Infantry Division
    • 1st Armoured Division
    • 7th Armoured Brigade
  • XIII Corps
    • 1st Infantry Division
    • 4th Infantry Division
    • 8th Indian Division
    • 8th Armoured Division
    • 9th Armoured brigade
  • I Canadian Corps
    • 1st Canadian Infantry Division
    • 5th Canadian Armoured Division
    • 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade
  • I South African Corps
    • 1st South African Armoured Division
    • 6th South African Armoured Division
• US 5th Army (Mark Clark)
  • II Corps
    • 34th Infantry Division
    • 88th Infantry Division
    • 91st Infantry Division
  • IV Corps
    • 85th Infantry Division
    • II Greek Infantry Division (Georgios Grivas)
    • 1st Irish Infantry Division
  • VI Corps
    • 3rd Infantry Division
    • 36th Infantry Division
    • 45th Infantry Division
  • 1st Armored Divisiom
  • Corps Expéditionnaire Français (Alphonse Juin)
    • 2e Division d'Infanterie Marocaine
    • 4e Division Marocaine de Montagne
    • 6e Division d'Infanterie Algérienne
    • 10e Division Infanterie Coloniale
  • Corpo Italiano di Liberazzione
    • Garibaldi combat group
    • Folgore combat group
    • Legnano combat group
    • Taurinense combat group

North Africa

• Armee B (Jean De Lattre De Tassigny)
  • I Corps Armee
    • 9e Division Infanterie Coloniale
    • 1e Division Blindee
    • 5e Division Blindee

Allied Frontline Strength July 2nd 1944

Macedonian Front

Greek	379,448​
British Empire	77,069​
Polish	67,214​
French	100,000​
Yugoslav	138,415​

Albania

Greek	94,222​
Albanian	3,931​

 

[Sport25ing]

Something that come up - were are the Armenian-in-exile?

 

[Khan Doomy]

The 4k Albanians on the Entene side in the Epirus front are in what units?

 

[emperor joe]

has total greek army strength reached pre war levels yet?

 

[phil03]

I just caught up with this one and I must say that I like it a lot. It's a very thorough treatment of a POD I pondered a few times but which I very much do not have the slightest ability to properly explore (the Greeks winning the Greco-Turkish War). Kudos @Lascaris

I haven't gone through all the comments in details so please do forgive me all if someone else has already mentioned these but two points came to my mind in term of the speculations made by posts on where the TL is going:

On the fate of Constantinople, I do think that the potential political power of the Patriarchate re-containing Russia does give Greece a pretty solid card to play to get support from its Western allies, especially has many of their officials would become more and more apprehensive about Staline... The rivalry between the patriarchs of Moscow and Constantinople for influence over the wider Orthodox world isn't anything new, and is very much going strong up to the current day in OTL, and the USSR leadership showed it wasn't afraid to instrumentize the Russian Orthodox Church in OTL, which I assume is true ITTL too. Having Constantinople be a free city and/or UN mandate, from which it would be very difficult to keep out the USSR, would probably allow the Russians to curtail the influence of its patriarch in a hard-to-quantify but very real way, boosting the profile of his Moscovite counterpart as a result. On the other hand, if Constantinople, or at least the European part, ends up having its Enosis odds are that its Oecumenical Patriarchate's soft power would be as high as it has ever been since 1453, thanks to finally being back under the jurisdiction of an Orthodox-majority country, which would leave it well equipped to affirm its preeminence against any move from the Patriarch of Moscow.

On Turkey's faith post-war, I agree with what seems to be the consensus: it's gonna be in a bad state but functional, it will be able to soften the blow of losing the war by playing East against West, although its still going to be bad, and everything we know about Stalin tend to indicate that the next years are going to be extremely unpleasant for the ethnic Turks in the territory ceded to the USSR, with ethnic cleansing being likely

However, I do think that in terms of mid and long-term predictions, we should also consider the potential impact of voluntary emigration as well. While it will probably emerge as a functional state post-war Turkey is also going to be unlikely to be a nice place to live. While it will probably escape paying much reparations and receive some economic by playing the Cold War card it will still probably need to absorb a lot of refugees, and lose a lot of its more economically valuable territory (sure, post-war Turkey will still look reasonably big on a map but a pretty huge chunk of that is just the core of the Anatolian plateau...), will have pretty poor relations toward most of its neighbors and will spend a pretty big portion of its budget on the armed forces.

Considering all of this I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a far larger Turkish diaspora than in OTL, as many Turks would decide to seek more promising economic climates elsewhere. This, in turn, would diminish the country's population significantly.

 

[Duke of Orlando]

British 9th Army (William Holmes)

• III Corps
  • 6th Indian Division
  • 1st Arab Division (Arab Legion)
  • 3rd Iranian Infantry Division
  • 1st Assyrian Brigade Group
• Peshmerga
  • 1st Kurdish Division
  • 2nd Kurdish Division
  • 3rd Kurdish Division

The camp of the British 9th army has got to be an … interesting place with so many disparate forces involved. Especially since so many of them got the same place promised to them. But if they can get past that, it’s got to be an interesting melting pot of beliefs and culture.

While it will probably escape paying much reparations and receive some economic by playing the Cold War card it will still probably need to absorb a lot of refugees, and lose a lot of its more economically valuable territory (sure, post-war Turkey will still look reasonably big on a map but a pretty huge chunk of that is just the core of the Anatolian plateau...), will have pretty poor relations toward most of its neighbors and will spend a pretty big portion of its budget on the armed forces.

Considering all of this I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a far larger Turkish diaspora than in OTL, as many Turks would decide to seek more promising economic climates elsewhere. This, in turn, would diminish the country's population significantly.

I think we will see a significantly larger diaspora as you say, that’s likely a natural outcome. I imagine they’d likely take the space of what is likely a significantly smaller Greek diaspora ITTL.

That being said I don’t think Turkeys economy will be in that bad a shape by the mid to late 50’s. At least if they aren’t a Soviet puppet which is possible. If they’re neutral or Western aligned I see no reason why they wouldn’t experience a large economic boom from the Marshall plan post war like the other major participants.